Chapter 2, Verse 2: Put a Ring On It

The best part of my day:  after I take my morning shower, I walk across the hall to the bed room and slip on my wedding ring for the first time that day. I say this with no intention of it sounding corny, but the honest truth. As the day progresses, the ring is a constant reminder that I spend my life with my best friend and there is a comfort in that.

The wedding ring is a symbol of one’s devotion to another and for me it is a privilege to wear it. My intentions here are not to say that marriage is for everyone. Marriage is hard work and for those who do work on their marriage, the rewards are satisfying. The sanctity of marriage is debated constantly in our society: on a political level, on a religious level, on a personal level, on a professional level. At the center of debate is whether two men or two women should be allowed to marry, but you all know this already.

I find that we live in a society of black and white opinions about a gray world. What I mean is that our sides to every argument are always clear cut, when the issue we are arguing over is anything but. For instance, those that believe two people of the same sex should not be married most often quote the Bible as the basis of their argument. Likewise, those that believe in same sex marriage who are faced with the argument I just mentioned would typically say that the Bible is outdated and does not apply.

For me, there is a little bit of right and wrong in each of those arguments. The Bible is a bit outdated, yes, but that does not mean there are no good rules and wisdom to apply to your life within it’s pages. Do I feel that these hard-line stances will change any time soon? No, I do not. Nor am I trying to convince anyone on either side of the debate to switch sides.

Full disclosure, I do believe that two people who love each other, regardless of their gender, should be able to marry. It is 2012. There have been science fiction movies of yesteryear made about us living and thriving in space during this time period. In reality we are still squabbling over who can and can’t be married. It’s a bit disconcerting.

However, I don’t fault those on the anti-same sex married side of the issue. Pardon me for lumping an entire group together, but for the most part, it is a Christian-based argument.  Christians are taught to believe and live according to The Word. The Bible clearly states that homosexuality is a sin and thus Christians follow that belief. My point is that I may not agree with their thoughts, but I certainly can respect where they are coming from.

You may be aware of the “Book of Mormon,” the Broadway musical based on Mormon missionaries whom travel to Uganda. There is a song from that musical called, “I Believe,” where one of the main characters recognizes that to be able to call himself a Mormon, he “cannot believe partway, I have to believe in it all.” Regardless of circumstances he might question, one has to be fully committed or else there’s no commitment at all. In short: all or none.

I note this because some of the Christians I know do have these same doubts and questions. I was raised in a Christian home and grew up thinking same sex relationships were wrong. After distancing myself from Christianity, it was easier to be more accepting of so called ‘alternative’ lifestyles. Believing in anything takes a large amount of faith, whether it’s religion or believing in yourself in your every day trials and challenges. It’s why I admire those with faith and belief in God while others laugh at them. It’s easier to mock and much harder to ‘turn the other cheek’ as the Bible instructs.

I’ve long tried to reconcile with the faith that I lost in my late teenage years. The hardest obstacle I’ve found to get past is the issue of same sex marriage. To me, it would feel like a regression to go from ‘No!’ on the issue to “Yes!” and then back to “No!” again. A bit of a deal breaker, if you will.

Bringing it back around, I just couldn’t imagine if someone told me that I couldn’t slide my wedding ring on daily, let alone marry the one I love. It’s unfair, it’s cruel, it’s heartless. If two people feel like they want to commit to each other for the rest of their days and are willing to work at it, let them! It shouldn’t matter if it’s man-woman, man-man, or woman-woman. That’s my opinion and if you disagree, you are entitled to that.

But my point remains that issues like these continue to tear us apart as a country and as people. I realize this isn’t revolutionary in any way, just something that’s been weighing on my mind during an election year that’s bound to be filled with mudslinging between contestants and voters on each side of the part lines. “We’re all in this thing together,” like Old Crow Medicine Show once sang. Disagree on issues all you want, but don’t bring hate into the equation.

Chapter 1, Verse 1: The Obligatory Introduction

Life Goggles? Is that supposed to be some sort of deep, poetic title meant to catch a reader’s attention and make them think that because the title is so deep and enlightening that the text contained there within should be the same? Does the writer realize how dumb a blog entitled “Life Goggles” really is?

Save the questions. I’ve thought of them myself. Truth is, I decided I wanted a space to just talk about my favorite subjects: sports, movies, music, TV, life. Just so happens, I’m quite uncreative when it comes to thinking up titles, so I went to a name generator site on the interwebs, typed in “life” and it came back with several results. Life Goggles happened to be one of them. Voila! A blog is born.

So please, judge this blog (I really do hate that word) on the content of the posts, not on the name of the blog.

What should you, my dear reader, expect while reading this? Truthfully, I can’t tell you that at this time. I’m not sure how regularly I will update this. I can’t tell you how often I will talk about sports or life or religion or even if I will talk about any of those things. I’m on a road trip without a map here.

There may be some grammatical issues, I may not follow proper sentence structure at times. The point of this all is that I plan to jot down thoughts on topics that I feel like talking about. Whether you want to read that is up to you; I don’t care whether you read this or not. I won’t take it personally if you decide to take the easy route and go back to reading Perez Hilton’s latest musings.

I can assure you that most of the posts following this one will be much more interesting. I can promise that you will love, hate, or feel indifferent towards the essays and writings contained within these pages. And I can guarantee that at some point I will probably make fun of Nickleback, Vin Diesel, Brett Favre, or maybe all three in the same sentence.

To wrap up the initial post, I figured I’d start something that I hope to carry on throughout my time updating this. I’ll either jot down the song I’m listening to as I finish the post or just a song I recommend at that time.

For today, song as of this sentence: “Flightless Bird” by Iron & Wine

Goodnight and we’ll talk in the near future.